Great Thanks to all Motivators of my Work
Inspired by the Person Who Credited My Account at 4.AM this Morning
Image Above
Myself, right, with Opa Osanyin, staffs embodying Osanyin, the Yoruba deity of the spiritual and biological powers of plants, at Signature Gallery, Ikoyi, Lagos, and left, a picture of a magnificent Opa Osanyin, from Julie Wallace on Pinterest.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
4.am this morning on Saturday, September 2020.
I had worked, eaten, taken a walk and was trying to persuade myself to return to work, when I heard a sound from my phone.
It was an alert from my bank stating someone had just paid some money into my account.
I sent them an email asking what the money was for.
The response was ''the donation is in pursuit of your broad interest in Yoruba Studies.''
The person insists on anonymity in public space.
How am I to respond?
This philanthropist joins the inimitable artists Evelyne Huet, remarkable painter, philosopher, mathematician and prose poet, Ato Arinze, powerful ceramicist and sculptor, Dan Akusobi, memorable philosopher, and other enthusiasts about my work, people met online and family members and friends who have also made donations, such as Oluseyi Awofeso, Babatunde Olasunkanmi, Kayode Oluwafemi, Arit Oku, Akin Solanke, Ifuemi and Ameto Adepoju, Jhalobia Ojemu, Seyi Ogunfuwa and one or two others whose names I am not able to retrieve right now, an omission for which I beg forgiveness.
Also strategic are those whose focus is on moral support vital to sustaining my work. This includes those who make comments on my writings, such as the ceaseless poetic philosophical commentary of Eze Chimalio and Evelyne Huet.
This group of motivators integrates those who simply click ''like'' on my Facebook posts, indicating that, out of the countless oceans of posts, they have noticed and responded to mine, their ''like'' indicating that somebody, somewhere, in the vastness of virtual space, is responding to my reaching out to the cosmos from a corner of the globe.
These providers of moral support include those who express disagreement with my activities, thereby inspiring me with the understanding that my actions matter to others, even in disagreement.
These inspirers include those who commission my work, such as the artist Ayoola Gbolahan and Owusu Ankomah.
This group of motivators also embraces the great scholars Abiola Irele, Toyin Falola, Adeshina Afolayan, Nimi Wariboko and others who integrate me into their academic systems through publishing opportunities, in response to my work seen on social media.
Also included are those whose invisible appreciation reaches tout to touch me across space, admirers of my work who are silent.
I beg forgiveness of all whose names I have not mentioned, people who have verbally encouraged me, who forward my posts, who republish them, giving me the credit.
I salute you all.
I research and write beceause I must. It is a compulsion and a love.
It is a need as fundamental as the need to breathe. The love is so overwhelming that I need to remind myself that I am a human being whose needs go beyond the hunger for knowledge.
The orientation of these drives towards Yoruba Studies, a central research interest, comes from reading Wole Soyinka's Myth, Literature and the African World, a great book that oriented my hunger for ultimate meaning and ultimate knowledge emerging from reading about the Buddha, reading Abdrushin's Grail Message and Sidney Bremer's Successful Achievement.
Soyinka's book inflamed this hunger towards exploring these possibilities in terms of Yoruba cosmology and its immediate cultural constellates, in relation to relations with African and global civilizations.
What do I do with these donations towards my work as an Independent Scholar, a scholar working outside an academic institution, a style of working I find congenial for its freedom but challenging on account of the ''freedom'' from institutional support?
A person who derives fulfillment from sharing on public, self publishing platforms the fruits of his research and writing?
I use some for my research and publications. I use some for private needs. I use some for charity, in order to empower others, particularly in the Nigerian context that has little or no social security. I save the rest.
Feel free to donate using the guidance at this link.
My publications are accessible through the Cognitive Platforms link of my central website, Compcros: Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems.The site design and contents will be refined and updated as soon as possible.
Ongoing projects include work on the universal significance of Yoruba aesthetics and the development of a new school of the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order.
Awaiting refinement and publication are completed works on the Ghanaian Akan and Gyaman origin Adinkra visual and verbal symbolism and the Sri Devi Khagamla Stotram of the Hindu school of Sri Vidya, among other projects.
I salute my gurus Tibetan Buddhist hermit and mystic, Jetsun Milarepa and writer, social activist and philosopher Wole Soyinka.
You open our eyes to what is possible, to possibilities within and beyond time and space.
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